💰 Income Report: November 2019

Amazon FBA

Sales: 2,378
Revenue: $45,764.75
Profit: $2,431.90
Gross Margin: 5%
2019 💰 Profit to Date: $79,985.64

* sales data from JungleScout Sales Alaytics

The story for FBA is a bit similar to last month, where I'm selling a few of my larger SKUs at a loss to both:

• Avoid paying the high storage fees by selling as many units as possible
• Boost the organic rank by building sales velocity (by offering a lower price) as we head into Christmas

* click to expand

I'm happy to report that my 3rd most profitable SKU on the month was one that I resurrected from the dead!

I sold it in the past under a brand that was associated with my "big website" brand (that I post about in the AdSense section), but I had been using a different supplier.

It had a modification made to the "standard model" that on paper seemed like a good idea, but it turns out that the market didn't agree with me at the end of the day.

I had my guy on the ground in China do some research and he was able to put me in touch with a supplier that offered me a really incredible price:

• Old Supplier Price: $2.10/unit
• New Supplier Price: $1.10/unit

That's around a 47% savings!

With sea shipping, it's only around $2.18 per unit. I've been experimenting with price points between $9.99-$11.99 and customers seem to have been pleased!

And here's my Campaign Manager statistics from Seller Central:

• Spend: $2,155.17 $749.97 MoM
• Sales: $6,453.41 $3,402.06 MoM
• ACos: 33.40% 3.92% MoM

I had increased my PPC spend a bit on my new SKU that I launched towards the end of summer in hopes to move higher volume (they're my biggest SKU in terms of physical dimensions).

It was a strategic decision - I was aware that it'd likely increase my overall ACoS... but this is the reality of entering a competitive niche with massive profits on the line!

Last, I reached an agreement with an Amazon seller agency that you can outsource work to related to running an Amazon business (literally, almost anything) where they will provide some services to me pro-bono & I will share my honest feedback on my blog + YouTube channel with the world in hopes to promote their brand & send some qualified traffic their way.

I'll always keep it real with you guys, so stay tuned for a follow up on where my relationship with them goes.

For now, I'll share the name & url of the agency: FountainHeadME.

If you're ready to start your FBA business, you can enroll below:

I show you exactly how I built my FBA business from the ground up, & how I run it today - nothing is held back.

Amazon Merch

Sales: 388
Revenue: $7,685.34
Royalty: $1,254.98
Avg. Royalty: $3.25
2019 💰 Profit to Date: $11,847.30

• USA
  $1,211.75
• UK
  £19.93
• DE
  €15.75

* sales data from PrettyMerch Pro

My best selling shirt was a tie @ 14 units moved on the month, except that one of them was priced at $13.07 (hoping to build momentum for Halloween) so it netted me a lousy $0.00 royalty (oops!).

The rest of my shirts were scattered niches, and almost exclusively evergreen.

I should mention that I sold 7 of a shirt I have priced at $24.99, netting me $67.07 in royalties from those 7 sales.

You should experiment with pricing shirts in the $20-$25 range - try it on a few of your best sellers!

I also worked out a workflow that I'm extremely excited to share with you guys when the time is right.

I believe I found the perfect way of "making it work for me". What I mean by this is that I'm very, very busy every day... but I don't make excuses!

I've worked out a workflow that relies heavily on automation where I can automate bulk designs, quickly automate the upload to Amazon Merch, & get them uploaded to additional POD platforms.

The conversion form Merch to KDP is a breeze using the Merch Titans PNG to KDP Cover converter.

I don't want to talk too much about it until I feel like I've worked out all the kinks and gotten it running "fully optimal".

But the final piece of the puzzles that was missing... I solved it in November, & I can hardly contain my excitement!

Here's my sales breakdown by day:

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Breakdown by product type:

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Breakdown by fit type:

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And last, breakdown by color:

* click to expand

Stay tuned for big news coming in December related to my new scalable POD automation workflow - it's an absolute GAMECHANGER!

Until then, I'll be using it daily in an attempt to get my upload slots as close to 20,000 / 20,000 in time for the holidays.

If you're ready to take your Amazon Merch business to the next level, you can enroll in Ryan's Method: Amazon Merch Course below:

I show you every trick in the book that I used to reach tier 10,000, including niche research tips, design tips, listing optimization tips, AMS advertising tips, & automation tips in the bonus section!

Dropshipped Print-on-Demand

Sales: 398
Profit: $2,022.52
2019 💰 Profit to Date: $20,966.36

Sales by platform:

• Amazon.com
  130
• Amazon.co.uk
  16
• eBay
  0
• Etsy
  0
• Redbubble
  98
• Spreadshirt
  5
• Teepublic
  27
• Teespring
  0
• Zazzle
  0

As it stands, I'm still suspended from Etsy due to faults in their automated IP infringement reporting system (that lets you get listings removed WITHOUT providing a trademark or copyright record!)

I briefly touched on this in my last income report & went in-depth about my experience in the following video:

I'm not planning on giving up any time soon, but I'm also trying to be respectful and not be a huge annoyance to them... but so far I have:

Called Etsy Support

I called them 3 times actually, because it took over 2 weeks for the "escalation team" to respond.

Their response ended up being a generic copy+paste email basically telling me that I'm out of luck - no manual review ever occurred.

I replied to that generic copy+paste email and got another copy+paste response (that for all I know, could've come from a robot).

Mailed them a letter @ their NYC office

I sent it in mid-November & have not heard back yet.

Connected with everyone on LinkedIn that went to my alma mater that works at Etsy

So far none of them have accepted my LinkIn request... I found a few of them on Facebook and am trying that avenue.

I really didn't expect this to be as hard as it is, but this is how Etsy plays ball.

Beyond Etsy, I saw a nice spike in my Redbubble + Teepublic sales.

Teepublic was a very pleasant surprise, at 27 sales on the month, I averaged almost 1 sale per day!

My suspicion is that Teepublic pricing attracts more buyers. When I look at my Teepublic store, I see t-shirt prices around $13-$15.

Zazzle on the other hand is selling my t-shirts for over $30, even though I have them setup to pay me similar margins.

I'll continue to tinker with them and refine my seller strategies.

I made 16 sales on my Amazon.co.uk account, netting me $250 of profit ($249.47 to be exact).

It's important to remember that volume is king!

Sell more products on more marketplaces = make more money!

Earlier today someone emailed me asking if it's worth selling on Amazon through Seller Central, because people had told them it wasn't worth paying the $39.99/mo fee.

Not only should you be selling on Amazon.com through Seller Central - as you can see by my figures, you should also be selling on the international markets!

Printful has a European fulfillment center that makes it easy to fulfill orders in Europe - take advantage of this competitive edge!

To wrap up, I wanted to share a Gearbubble story... I had a customer buy 40 coffee mugs from me, costing me almost $500 in fulfillment fees.

This illustrates both the good and bad of print on demand:

• Good: I profited $190 from the sale
• Bad: If they cancel or return the order, I'm out almost $500 (+ a bunch of friends & family members are gonna get a random coffee mug as a gift this Xmas!)

Fortunately, so far, the order has NOT been returned or canceled!

Google Ads

Earnings: $412.74
Page Views: 440,836
Ad Impressions: 1,351,248
2019 💰 Profit to Date: $1,977.30

* data from Google Ads

I run a few popular websites where I collect advertising revenue via Google Ads (formerly Google AdSense). I also collect revenue via direct partnerships with advertisers & from affiliate links, but for times sake, I'm going to omit those deals.

I won't be doing month-to-month write ups here because I don't spend much time maintaining these websites. They started out as passion projects that allowed me to become a better web developer, but today I spend very little time working on them.